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U.S. And China Tech Relations Intensify
by Winter Casey, with William New contributing from Beijing
BEIJING -- Relations between the United States and China related to trade and technology issues have intensified in recent weeks, punctuated by fallout from the U.S. filing of complaints over intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organization.
The WTO filings on April 10 kicked off the body's dispute-settlement process, starting with formal consultations but potentially ending down the road in high penalties on Chinese goods entering the United States.
The cases filed by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative involve protection of IP rights and barriers to trade in copyrighted items. No bilateral meeting appears to have been scheduled yet. Sixty days after filing, the United States may escalate the cases to dispute-settlement panels if there is no resolution.
China this week appears to be trying to influence whether other WTO members will join the U.S. case. The European Union has reportedly declined to join the case and no nations have yet joined, though Japan is said to be mulling it.
Last year, Japan and Switzerland joined the United States in exercising a little-used WTO provision to request detailed information about legal judgments involving piracy and counterfeiting in China. China refused to provide the information.
China reacted with outrage at the U.S. filings, but here this week, Chinese officials are stressing the importance of "dialogue" to address IP theft. Several officials participating in an IP and standards event referred to the Chinese government's efforts to address the problem.
The government launches its fourth annual "IPR Protection Publicity Week" beginning Friday, and China Daily, affiliated with the government, ran a full-page "IPR Special" section on page four of the newspaper. An article included a hotline for reporting infringements.
The government also held a briefing for local Chinese press with a senior copyright administration official that led the next day to a front-page China Daily story bearing the message: "Dialogue key to resolving IPR disputes, trade partners told." The story said trading partners should hold dialogue, not file complaints at the WTO.
Li Zhongzhou, China's former senior WTO negotiator, published an opinion piece in China Daily calling one U.S. case "very weak" and the other a "non-case." But he said China should now expect dispute cases since joining the WTO and given the size of its economy.
China also may be recognizing its own IP rights. New regulations are coming soon to protect the trademark logos and images of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, according to reports.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials and industry are busy on the ground in China, sources said. This week, Mark Adams, soon to be the new USTR official in Beijing, is here with fellow officials Tim Stratford, the assistant USTR for China affairs, and his deputy, Audrey Winter.
This week, officials from the two governments are meeting on the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, and next week, a planning meeting will be held for the Strategic Economic Dialogue, an event in late May led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
On the industry side, the standards event and a daylong conference here at Beijing University are being co-sponsored by Sun Microsystems, which is pursuing open technology and intellectual property standards approaches in China. Across town, Microsoft has several events this week touting innovation and education, including Chairman Bill Gates headlining a Global Leadership Forum on Wednesday and Thursday.
USTR Schwab Talks Trade In India
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath on Friday announced the formation of an advisory group of U.S. and Indian trade experts to guide the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum.
"It is our hope that the private-sector advisory group will infuse our very productive existing dialogue with new ideas to enhance the bilateral trade and investment environment," Schwab said in a statement.
The U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum, which was formed during the Washington visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005, seeks to promote greater trade and investment.
Schwab was in India last week for the first time since her Senate confirmation in 2006. She was accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Deputy USTR Karan Bhatia and Assistant USTR for South and Southwest Asia Douglas Hartwick. The trip was designed to further strategic trade talks and bilateral discussions between the countries. Topics included intellectual property rights, competition in telecommunications, tariff and non-tariff trade barriers.
The United States and India have one of the world's fastest-growing major trade relationships, according to USTR. The countries aim to double trade to about $60 billion by 2008.
On a related front, an annual USTR review released this month on the effectiveness of U.S. telecom trade agreements found that access to foreign satellites by Indian telecom and broadcast operators is restricted. India's regulatory practices concerning the issue are "out of step" with the policies of most countries, the review found.
Report: Online Images Of Child Abuse Spread
Online child-abuse content is increasing, according to new figures released by the Internet Watch Foundation on Tuesday.
The foundation said both the severity of the images and demand for the content have increased. The group found that 80 percent of the children found in abusive images are female, and 91 percent are believed to be less than 12 years old.
"The challenge to have commercial Web sites removed from the Web is a still a serious one, with some of the most prolific sites avoiding closure by 'hopping' servers across different legal jurisdictions," the foundation said.
The report also found a significant increase in the use of photo-sharing Web sites by offenders. In 2004, no images posted on photo sites were added to the foundation's database, but in 2006 they accounted for 10.5 percent of sites confirmed to contain child-abuse content.
According to the report, 62 percent of commercial child-abuse domains are hosted in the United States, and 28 percent are hosted in Russia.
International Graduate Applications In U.S. Jump
Graduate applications to U.S. universities from prospective international students increased 8 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to a report released this month by the Council of Graduate Schools. The figure compares with 12 percent from 2005 to 2006 and a 28 percent decrease the previous year.
The report found that while applications for fall 2007 from China are growing at about the same level as last year, applications from India have slowed. China and India annually send the most graduate students to the United States, according to the report.
"This second year of strong overall growth in applications from international students is welcome news," council President Debra Stewart said in a statement. "However, it is clear that, even at these rates, it will still take us many years to catch up to where we were before 2001. We are by no means out of the woods yet."
Stewart also noted that other countries have been heavily recruiting international students.
The group began studying international graduate school applications and enrollment trends in 2004 in response to concerns voiced by U.S. schools about the sharp decline in applications from foreign graduate students following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the report said.
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